It has been a while since I stopped to think about what I have been doing in analysing, planning and introducing customer relationship management. What triggered me to write this article is the astonishing observation that after twenty five years in this business nothing has changed. I still keep meeting frustrated sales and marketing people who have a beef with the IT people and vice versa. These misunderstandings have certainly not gone away with the technological developments expanding the sales and marketing process support functionality, the analytical power to categorise contacts, opportunities and threats and the platforms to deliver this functionality. On the contrary, the enormous choice in applications adds to the confusion as business execs believe in the promises made by the demos while the IT people worry about how they can integrate this new application into the existing infrastructure. I have a few ideas about the fundamentals which led to success in the past (as I learned from my own failures) and I decided to share them with you.
